The Sounds of War (Inactive)

Game Master Arcmagik

Here is the OOC discussion thread for the game. I will be posting some more information in the next few days as well as working to reconcile every character background to the current timeline which is before the call to retake the Stolen Lands.

I like to formally welcome the six characters to the game!

Grendolynn - Hobgoblin Ranger
Harcos Maverick Morrison - Human Gunslinger
Teyran Rilskel - Aasimar Paladin
Erostil Vramir - Dhampir Bard
Antha Scapegrace - Half Elf Wizard
Arasmes Vors - Human Cleric

Now the current event of the campaign that is bringing people from all over Brevoy to Restov is the betrothal ceremony between Alexis Orlovsky (Daughter of Lord Orlovsky) and Ioseph Sellemius (Lord Mayor of Restov). It means lots of important people and lots of opportunity to get work or become involved with the right people.

I put the following in the campaign information section.

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A labyrinthine political landscape plagues the nation of Brevoy; secret alliance, provincial loyalties, and nefarious plots abound. Brevoy is being pushed closer and closer to civil war by the continued machinations of the increasingly autocratic House Surtova. In the south, the Swordlords of Rostland who have long been enemies of House Surtova, fear such a war because their armies are fewer, their rolling hills and grasslands offer very little in the war of natural defenses, and their southern border lies along a stretch of wilderness infested with bandits and monsters. If Brevoy were to fall into a civil war, then it wouldn't be long at all before the violent, opportunistic vultures to the south move to take advantage of Rostland's problems. As the tension rises some of the Swordlords have begun to set in motions various political schemes...

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Chapter 1: A Swordlord's Gambit
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On the 22nd day of Calistril, the Free City of Restov welcomes visitors from all over Brevoy to celebrate the monumental event that will unite northern and southern Brevoy for the first time in centuries. The betrothal of Ioseph Sellemius, Lord Mayor of Restov, and Lady Alexis Orlovsky, daughter of Poul Orlovsky, one of the Issian Lords.

This is going to be great!

Never played a game with high guns, hero points, and E6 separately, let alone together. It's going to be interesting!

Hi all. Lets play.

I've got you beat, I've never played a game with any of those.

Hello everybody. I'm excited to start, let me know if I need to change anything in my background DM.

That's what Arasmes meant Teyran. He hasn't played with any of them either :P I've played high guns and hero points, but never E6.

Edit:Remind me which version of hero points we're using again? I've seen several.

I've never played any of those options either: it's part of why I wanted to play in this game.

Also, I've never played a wizard before. Keeping in mind my Opposed Schools are Enchantment and Necromancy, I'll take any advice on spell selection/memorization for how to best synergize with the party.

Likewise. I mean, apart from never having played any of those options, I haven't played a cleric before either. I've created them but I fail to recall ever actually playing one. Everything in this game is going to be shiny and new!

There are versions of Hero Points? I just saw what was in the APG and on PFSRD.

I had electricity problems for a day, will be able to post today/tomorrow

Oh, yeah. Funny how much the meaning can change if you overlook one word, eh?

Some links to the rules in play for everyone:

Hero Points
E6
Firearms Rules
Critical Fumble/Hits: I own the Pathfinder GameMastery Critical Hit and Critical Fumble decks, and will be using them in game. Fumbles use implementation option #1 (if you roll a natural 1, you follow it with a confirmation roll at your highest attack bonus, if that misses, you will receive a random yet appropriate effect from the deck). Confirmed Critical Hits replace 1x of your critical multiplier with a random card. Regular rules for stacking multiple multipliers apply.

I need Harcos' character sheet to be finished soon.

With everyone else we have to work out a new reason for your character to be in Restov. There is definitely a ton of opportunities for security, and meeting the higher ups during the betrothal ceremony. The state of affairs in Brevoy is tense, and there are whispers of war so there are opportunities for the military as well.

Antha could be just wandering after being kicked out/leaving, drawn to the opportunities of the big city and particularly current big events. It would be interesting trying to avoid her erstwhile family and her own reputation as a hellion while simultaneously being serious about looking for something meaningful to do with her life.

Grendolynn is in town selling her and her foster father's furs. With so many people gathering for the betrothal they expect to do brisk business.

Teyran would likely be there serving as a bodyguard for someone of importance, likely the bride or groom, but maybe an important guest that a paladin would want to guard.

Erostil will more likely than not be working in a tavern as the hired entertainment somewhere, perhaps seeking to gain employment as a bard at the actual ceremony.

Perform check
1d20 + 8 ⇒ (16) + 8 = 24

Arasmes was going to Restov due to the talks of a grand celebration. Somewhere he could lose himself and pull out of his melancholia.

Question: I notice you have everyone starting with 2 hero points. Would Arasmes have an extra point from his Hero's Fortune Feat?

E6

One question after reading the PDF: how much updating are you planning on to account for Pathfinder's rules changes from 3.5? Some of the feats are wonky in the PDF, and under Pathfinder no one would ever qualify for them (ie-9 ranks required, etc).

Arasmes was going to Restov due to the talks of a grand celebration. Somewhere he could lose himself and pull out of his melancholia.

Question: I notice you have everyone starting with 2 hero points. Would Arasmes have an extra point from his Hero's Fortune Feat?

Yes. Everyone got a Hero Point for backgrounds.

DundjinnMasta wrote:

E6

One question after reading the PDF: how much updating are you planning on to account for Pathfinder's rules changes from 3.5? Some of the feats are wonky in the PDF, and under Pathfinder no one would ever qualify for them (ie-9 ranks required, etc).

You just have to miss the initial 3 ranks in 3.5E, so it will be 6 ranks. Some of the crafting rules were pointed out to me as well which is apparently Pathfinder does not have a craft limit, but you increase the DC when attempting to craft items higher level then you or something of that nature. I need to get back to reviewing that tonight, a good reminder. Any other questions that you have please post them.

When do we get a gameplay thread? Otherwise its a pain in order to actually chase down the game.

Also, Hi all. Never played E6, but Dm'ed several things in normal pathfinder. Guns everywhere is one hell of a change though I will admit, and it might end up being a feat I take if only to seriously help out with combat generally.

Should be a really interesting game. Just eager to start now.

problem fixed, will soon be able to post again

Sorry about the mess, had no ability to post from home, and at the job it was hectic and couldn't risk being caught hanging on the net

Arasmes Vors wrote:

Arasmes was going to Restov due to the talks of a grand celebration. Somewhere he could lose himself and pull out of his melancholia.

Question: I notice you have everyone starting with 2 hero points. Would Arasmes have an extra point from his Hero's Fortune Feat?

Yes. Everyone got a Hero Point for backgrounds.

new to these hero points stuff, do we all have the Hero's Fortune feat for free then?

Not that I'm aware of. I actually picked that as one of my feats.

From what I understand, everyone starts with 1 point and our backgrounds gave us another (thus 2 out of a possible 3 points). The feat I took gives me an extra hero point and increases my maximum to 5 (so I'd have 3 out of 5).

When do we get a gameplay thread? Otherwise its a pain in order to actually chase down the game.

Also, Hi all. Never played E6, but Dm'ed several things in normal pathfinder. Guns everywhere is one hell of a change though I will admit, and it might end up being a feat I take if only to seriously help out with combat generally.

Should be a really interesting game. Just eager to start now.

I will be posting the thread this weekend. Just finalizing some ideas for each character as well as waiting for Harcos.

EDIT: char sheet done

I assume Harcos could go to represent his family at the event as his father and siblings are all busy to go themselves. He has a white horse called "Snow" and he called his two revolvers "Ocean Torrent" and "Magma Burst".

Nothing is mastercraft or magical, so I think in future I will replace the guns for the same kind but made out of mithral, the names of them will be kept and magical enchantments will represent water/ice and fire/earth on them, fitting their names.

Coat of Arms

In case it matters

The Sounds of War

Let trumpet the Sounds of War.

I posted the initial post for the game thread. I am working on a post for each of you individually as well now.

Diplomacy: 1d20 + 6 ⇒ (6) + 6 = 12

Oops, I didn't notice that I posted that as Wolfman. . .

I meant to already get posts out, but I am running behind so I won't get a chance to post for several more hours. Fate has aligned against me after my meeting last night and my morning today... 'yay'.

My vacation is over and I will be returning to work tomorrow which means my posting for become slightly more structured. I will post my responses anywhere between 6-8 PM EST. You may see the occasional short posts before I leave for work (around 6:30 AM EST) and sometimes I am home for lunch as well but those posting times will be a rarity. If I get behind for some reason (it happens) then I will usually be able to catch up on posting during the weekend so do not fear!

I usually try to keep open communication when I will be unable to post so anytime I think my posting is going to be out of sync I will try to post here.

I have been enjoying the game and the group is almost to the point that I will get you all in the same place then the real fun can begin.

Last three days have been absolutely brutal for me. I will post later tonight once I have caught up on everything. Thanks!

1d10 + 3 ⇒ (7) + 3 = 101d6 ⇒ 1

1d20 ⇒ 8

Cool description DM. Glad to see this game starting to pick up steam :)

Wanted to get in a post tonight but it doesn't look like it will be happening since I just got home and need to sleep for work in 7 hours. I will post tomorrow night, and that should hopefully give Harcos enough time to input a new action in based on the questions I answered for him.

So as I was saying, Sorry for the delay, will post tomorrow. Thanks!

We are almost through my introductory chapter!

1d20 + 7 ⇒ (16) + 7 = 23

I just want to say that I literally said to myself before I rolled the attack against Antha, "He can't possibly kill her with the attack even with the damage bonus from favored enemy (elf)."

Post... Jaw-drop on the Nat 20. Part of me was relieved that the confirmation didn't succeed. I don't pull punches, but that just felt mean to me.

Hey, them's the dice - it wouldn't be your fault if it did. As much as I like the character (and she's one of my favorites), I think it'd be hilarious to get one-shot-killed in the first attack roll of the game!

Just goes to show, that's what I get for trying to be a hero(ine)!

I am going to be working on posts again today, and since there are a few people that haven't posted in a couple days (or more) I thought this was a perfect time to touch upon my inactive rule that I use for PBP.

Obviously stuff is going to happen outside of the computer and people can't help it (I know that I can't). And the rule is invalidated if you warn me ahead of time that you are going to be gone for a few weeks (though in the fast-pace world of Paizo play by post that seems like a long time!).

My typical rule goes this way, if you haven't posted in two weeks then I will give you a warning to let you know that you need to post, if you then haven't posted in two weeks then I will drop you and recruit another player into the game. This will help keep the game active and fresh imo.

Posting after the warning will not save you if you repetitively go missing.

With that said the rule was adopted for a place that had a much slower overall posting rate. I think I may decrease the time of warning and the time before you are dropped to seven days and seven days (with a seven day grace period for recruiting so I can bring a new player into the game).

As my players I wish to hear your thoughts on the matter...

There will be post inbound today as well

I prefer a much faster pace than that, so feel free to set the limit to 3 or 4 days as far as I'm concerned.

I prefer a much faster pace than that, so feel free to set the limit to 3 or 4 days as far as I'm concerned.

+1

+1

Alright, due to my own posting rates during the week sometime I have decided to use the following inactivity rule.

If you haven't posted in 1 week then I will send you a warning which will give you three days to post, if you haven't posted in three days then I will cut you out of the game.

This is all assuming that you have up and disappeared without any warning or message.

Once I remove the player from the game I will adopt the character as a NPC until such a time that I can write them out of the story. I will also post a recruitment looking to fill the slot of the abandoned player which will be active for 4 days.

This brings the turn around on inactivity and the introduction of a new character to two complete weeks. Unless more then 1 player vanishes at once then we should easily be able to keep things at a steady pace during the time it takes to remove and introduce a new character.

It seems reasonable to me. My posting is admittedly unstable or absent from the boards on weekends, but weekdays my posting is fairly regular.

I will be away on vacation from the 14th to about the 23rd of September, and will thus likely not be able to post much if at all. I'll raise this again as the day approaches.

Thanks for the heads up, please do reminder me when we get closer to the date.

A bunch of things conspired against me too so that I didn't get free to be able to post until late and I've been sitting here trying to hammer out a post and it just isn't working. I am going to set it aside for tonight and move forward tomorrow night. We are almost through my introduction so I am just going to skip a head slightly tomorrow night to where we can bring the group together.

I started a recruitment thread to replace Harcos who had until today to post.

FYI, I'm going on a short vacation Friday/Saturday/Sunday. I'll be able to occasionally check and post from my phone, but since it's a holiday weekend I don't expect there to be much activity anyways.

I am feeling a bit brazen and well-adjusted to the Paizo atmosphere so I am increasing the game size to my typical play-by-post size of 8 players. My recruitment of 1 player ended poorly when I couldn't decide which of three characters I wanted so I took all of them. Now presenting...

Thadeuzs 'Tad' Orlovsky as the Royal Assassin.
Valeska Talanova as the Marshal.
Morley Worgendale as the Councilor.

I think these characters will fit well within the story that I have envisioned, and after looking for the role list there isn't much overlap if Antha becomes Magister and Erostil becomes Grand Diplomat.

And that isn't taking into considering one of the roles will be vacant when a "Ruler" is chosen.

I will bring my weaving in a few hours soon as the new players have time to get over here.

Ok sounds good, although we might need to have more posting going on generally within the game. I have posted recently as there has been nothing for me to post in response to, and I hate forcing myself into the character interaction when I have no reason to.

There has to be some general role-play at times because I can't constantly force the game forward. Posting rates rest in the hands of the players as much as the GM, and right now the party is responsible for the posting rate. I was also using the break to bring in more players which should increase the rate of posting eventually as they get introduced to the party.

It also appears that some of the posting times have not aligned up well which also has an effect on posting. I do not have access to my computer usually from 12 AM to 6 PM EST on weekdays because of my sleep/job/life, and once I do get a chance to post it generally takes me an hour to get a post/posts together and then not everyone responds until morning, of course this varies from day to day. I still feel the game has been moving considerably faster then the average pbp off-site.

I want the party to interact, and everyone at the Gnarly Hobbit were characters that stood out during the failed ceremony so this is/was the chance for your characters to interact with outside of combat/events that are happening. By what twist of fate do you all find yourself sharing the same roof...

Some highlights of the ceremony that could be touched upon...

The towering hobgoblin with a halfling on her shoulders who leap from a building to the ground to wade through the crowd and challenge one of the bandits single-handedly. (Grendolynn)

The old knight (paladin) with armor brazenly displaying a picture of a tiefling woman upon it was bodyguard to the 'King' and 'Queen' of Brevoy at the ceremony. (Teyran)

The Minstrel that played so well for the ceremony who even without great skill continued to tend to the wounded while waiting for help to arrive. (Erostil)

The young woman that discovered the location of the sniper who almost died trying to draw everyone's eyes to him who had a Swordlord of Restov fall over her body to protect her with his own. (Antha)

And finally the officiator of the wedding, a priest of the Dawnflower, who saved the life of both Lady Orlovsky and Antha, who along with Erostil tended to the wound long beyond his capabilities waiting for the city priests to arrive. (Arasmes)

There are plenty of openings to interact just from the events of yesterday without having to force interaction. A simple thank you or commending someone for their actions can achieve 2-3 posts per character, which is around 10-15 posts overall without my input and are very simple interactions without a great deal of back and forth (which could spawn even more posts).

I was also waiting for the new characters and a lull in the role-play (which came faster then expected) before bringing back in Kesten. Since there hasn't been significant interaction and the new characters are not yet in the game then I will give a prod with Bingo to keep things moving.